The Ryen Russillo Podcast - NFL Top 5 at Every Position With Sheil Kapadia

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

Russillo is joined by The Ringer's Sheil Kapadia to rank their top five NFL players at every position on offense (0:31) and defense (28:29). Then, Ryen answers some listener submitted Life-Advice questions (54:27). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Sheil Kapadia Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's episode, we're going to rank the top five at every position in the NFL. We'll just group the O-line guys together. Sorry, you guys get hosed again. We'll do it with Shilpa Padia, who is terrific. We'll listen to his rankings before you listen to mine. The Jalen Brown extension just happened. We'll touch on that if there's more news coming up on Thursday. It just happened as we were taping.

And of course, life advice. Enjoy. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything? Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable. Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah.

And a snow day, again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping? Total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details.

Okay, getting you ready for the 2023 NFL season. That's right. We're talking rankings in July. What else are we going to do during this downtime? Shilka Padia, who is terrific on the NFL. We have him on all the time. I love the 2023 NFL season. That's right. We're talking rankings in July. What else are we going to do during this downtime? Shilka Padia, who is terrific on the NFL. We have him on all the time. I love the guy's work. Here is the plan.

We are going to go through all the positional groups here. We're going to do quarterbacks, receivers, running backs, tight ends, the O-line groups. And then on the defensive side of the ball, we're going to go edge, interior defensive linemen, corners, safeties, off-ball linebackers. We're going to rank our top five. And it's not fantasy, although in some of the cases it could be. But it's more about who you are right now and where we think you stand in the game going into next season and what you'd expect to get out of this player for next season. Shil Kapadia, who joins us, who's terrific and a big fan.

We have him on all the time. So what's up to you, man? How's it going? Doing well. I felt like the exercise here, I felt like you guys picking your all NBA where it sort of pains you. I listened to your podcast and I'm like, man, they're really stressing over this. That's what I felt like doing this exercise we're going to do today. Yeah. If you think I struggle with some of the NBA stuff, there's definitely a couple of groups here where I'm like, okay, I can look it all up. I can read different stuff and thoughts on it.

Let's just get it started. We'll go through quarterbacks, receivers, running backs. We'll do offensive line unit and then tight end. Then on the defensive side, we're going to do edge guys, interior guys, corners, safeties, and off the ball linebackers. We'll use a couple of different things.

Some of the pro football focus stuff. There's a really good piece of Jeremy Fowler on ESPN getting quotes from executives. And then just kind of put together all those hours of watching these games. All right, let's start with the headliners. Quarterbacks, I'll just have you bring us in and then I'll kind of give you my five

after you're done, all right? Okay, I've got Mahomes, Burrow, Allen, Herbert, and Hertz. And there were probably three other guys. So I was like, ooh, I kind of... Because this is looking to this year, right? Who are not past performance. This is for 2023, not for the next 10 years. At least that's how I did it. Those were my five guys. Yeah, I've got the same five. Really? The only difference is I have Allen over Burrow. If you want to tell me arm in the running attack that Allen provides you that Burrow doesn't, not that Burrow can't run the football, but just Allen one-on-one to the pylon against a defensive player, Allen's going to win that more often than maybe almost any quarterback other than Lamar who would win in a different way.

I went with that even though I wouldn't argue, I wouldn't sit here and say that's insane to have Burrow ahead of Allen. I think Herbert's the one where he's kind of like an NBA player who's been an all-star for seven straight years, and he's got his max, and he's lost in the second round of the playoffs, and that would be a lot for Herbert but it the tide really felt like it was turning on him publicly where it's like oh if this guy's so good but then it's like you know that's really more of a social media commentary with him where

all of a sudden like because he hasn't won in the playoffs despite every single person that works in this league that seems to think he's terrific or for whatever fan base that maybe thinks their guy's ahead of him, I'd always ask, so if you traded for him and he was your starter week one, you'd be bummed out? And the answer we know is no. You could get into it a little deeper where his yards per attempt were the third lowest in the NFL. And the names that he's down there with are pretty uninspiring quarterbacks.

But he faced 258 pressures last season, which is the second most since ESPN started tracking it, so 2009. So it could be even worse if we track that number. So I'm with you on that, and it's funny because I went into it, Sheil, thinking like with Hurts, I go, am I going to put him top five after just one special year? And I still think it's the right answer, which I was surprised. I went into it going, I know I'm going to catch shit because I don't think I'm going to put him top five. But I think he's there, even though my rule would be to be that guy, you kind of have to have done it for a couple seasons. But I think it's the right answer, despite going into it thinking that I wasn't going to come up with them. Yeah, I think you're, first of all, right about the Herbert fatigue. I don't think it is just social media. I have friends who I

know will crush me that I have Herbert over hurts in this exercise. I'm with you though. You watch him and you're just like, it's going to happen eventually. He's still young enough. Everything is there. The arm, he doesn't turn the ball over. He's athletic enough. He's smart. He's accurate. His OC got killed last year, Joe Lombardi, with the Chargers, because that yards per attempt number you quoted,

he had the third shortest just average distance on his throws. And you watch him, and when he unleashes one 40 yards downfield, you're watching and you're going, why do they not do this more? And so frustrating. Part of that was like you mentioned, they had O-line injuries last year. I think this is sort of a no excuses year for Herbert. I mean, that offensive line is really good this year. That's a top 10 offensive line.

They draft Quentin Johnson. They've still got Mike Williams and Keenan Allen and Austin Eckler. They've got the new OC in Kellen Moore, who if you look at Kellen Moore with the Cowboys, they produced top five offenses basically whenever Dak Prescott was healthy. So I think it's all there for Herbert. It hasn't happened yet. I understand the Herbert fatigue. You want him to be better than 25 and 24 as a starter. You want him to do something in the playoffs, but I still have him there. And then Hurts, I'm with you. I kind of had the same thing. I was actually debating him and Trevor Lawrence, honestly. I think Trevor Lawrence is going to have a monster season this year.

And that's another guy who you're going off really half a season of work last year and the playoffs. But Hurts, the small body of work is also a reason to kind of put him up there because he's improved. He improved so much year to year. I mean, I think people would be surprised. He completed 67% of his passes last year. He had the lowest interception rate in the NFL, and he's already one of the best Russian quarterbacks we've ever seen. And he's what,

24 years old, has all the pieces around him. So I think we made the right call getting him in there at number five. Okay. So that means, and by the way, on that Herbert stat, you're right. That's air yards per attempt. That was the third lowest in the NFL. So it's not just yards per attempt, if I misspoke when I said that the first time, because that actually could be more concerning, because that's a number that usually tells you some truths with quarterbacks. Aaron Rodgers, both not in our top five.

Thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I think the Jets, I'm sort of getting to a point where I'm a little bullish on the Jets, where I think they can make the playoffs. And I think he's going to be fine. I think he was playing injured last year. I don't think he's top five.

I think the Jets kind of need him to be like top 12, top 15 with the defense they have and some of the talent they have at wide receiver. I mean, I'm just not going to bet on a quarterback who's in his age 40 season to be a top five quarterback, even if he is kind of an all-timer. So that was the only reason I left him out, but I think he can be pretty good this year, actually. Yeah, I think the Trevor Lawrence call for you, like, I didn't think I'd have him in my top five either. I don't,

I'm fine with it. And it's like, wait, if we're going to give Lawrence all of this credit for his season, then Hertz wins that tiebreaker. If it were even a tie, but it wasn't really even a tie for me. The only other name,

there's two things that I want to bring up on this is that I still hold out hope that Deshaun Watson as a football player, like there's no way that's who he was in 2022. There's no possible way for a guy that I thought was he has a chance to get back to that. I cannot, I won't let myself believe that he's as bad as the guy that we saw last year. Yeah, it was a six game sample. Now he was legitimately statistically like one of the five worst quarterbacks in the league, but it's a six game sample last year. I left him out just because like, I kind of want to see it at this point. I mean, it's been three years

since he's been on the field as a very good quarterback. And so I'm with you. He's still young enough. He still has the tools. I just wasn't willing to go there. And then the other guy was, you know, Lamar Jackson, we haven't brought up yet. To me, just kind of the durability

of having missed 10 games over the last two seasons combined with the inconsistencies there in the passing game that they've had. Now, they're hopeful that the new coordinator will help that too. He was the other guy I thought about in the last one. It was just Dak. I still think Dak Prescott is a really, really good quarterback, even without the playoff success, but I wasn't willing to have him above any of those guys in the top five. Yeah, Lamar, I was never thinking I would have him fifth.

But if somebody goes, hey, seventh, I'm not going to say that he's wrong. So when we wait on Sandoz quarterback to your column that comes out, you know, it'll be an outrage once again when he's like sixth or seventh. And it's like, I don't really think it's that outrageous. It's actually a huge compliment. But when you put together some of the MVP stuff that he's done, you're like, well, wait a minute, how many guys? And I think everybody's kind of settled on this

and it just turns into a bit of an outrage. Final thought on the quarterback stuff. When I was looking at the PFF rankings, we are in a weird spot with the bottom third. When you start to look at the depth of the position, and part of this is inflated just because the way the game is played now the way the game is officiated we're middle of the pack statistical quarterbacks are putting up absurd numbers but if you look at the bottom third of this league going into this season with the quarterbacks it feel like it feels

like it got really bad really quickly or i guess the way you could explain it is that the guys that we didn't know about we know about now you know the the unknown lets you think there's a chance this person could be really good so you could look at like five totally unproven quarterbacks and still have hope for them when you look at the way some of these rankings break down from like 20 on down you're like man, man, this is a really, it feels like it's going into the season as a really bad bottom third. They had Fields ranked 18th, which obviously is a huge bump

because of how amazing he is running the football. But that does not last. It doesn't turn you into a franchise quarterback. I know he has lofty goals for himself here. But just looking at the position, I was like, man, it feels like it got really bad in the bottom third here, which could mean we could have a lot of new starters going into 2024. All right. Wide receiver. Go ahead.

Justin Jefferson, Jamar Chase, A.J. Brown. That one, I think, might surprise people that I have him at three. Devontae Adams and Tyreek Hill are my five. I will say wide receiver and corner. I don't know how you felt. Those were the two that I was just like, man, you could probably name 12 to 15 guys who deserve to be in there. But those were the five that I settled on. And then I have a bunch that I just left off. Okay, so I also picked the brains of a few people here. And I'm telling you, football players seem to love Devontae Adams.

Yeah. And that influenced my pick for it. If he goes for 100 receptions and 1,300 yards this year, it'll be four straight seasons with it. The only other receiver to ever do it is Marvin Harrison. So, you know, to just pencil in, oh, if he goes for 100 and 1,300 again, this is the guy. That's not entirely fair to the other wide receivers.

But the combination of what he did with the quarterbacks in Vegas, the size, the route running part of it, which I think Jefferson is considered the most elite of the group, but I went Adams. I went Jefferson, too. He's at 4,800 plus yards his first three years, which is an NFL record, and that's with Thielen dropping off, although you could argue Thielen's numbers dropped off because they could just throw it to Jefferson every time. I like Jamar Chase better than Jefferson. Probably no one's going to agree with me on that one.

I like that he brings a little bit more of a well-rounded thing as far as the physical nature of it, but he also missed five games of the hip injury. You could get on him for the drops a little bit more of a well-rounded thing as far as the physical nature of it, but he also missed five games of the hip injury. You could get on him for the drops a little bit against Jefferson. Some lost fumbles if you really wanted a nitpick of it all. So I ended up putting him third because I thought it was kind of the right

thing, but I think going into a year, if I knew both were going to be healthy, I'd rather have Jamar. I put Tyreek fourth, and I have Diggs fifth. So I don't have AJ. So give us your AJ Brown breakdown. Yeah, I mean, AJ Brown last year, almost 1,500 yards. If you look at all the advanced stuff, yards per route run,

he's top five over the last three years. He's 26 years old. And to me, he doesn't get talked about as a well-rounded receiver. You think, oh, he's just a physical specimen who's working the middle of the field. He's averaged 16 and a half yards per reception over the last four seasons. That's second in the entire NFL.

That's more than Tyreek Hill. He averaged 17 yards per reception last year where he was just an incredible downfield threat where there would be plays drawn up where on the chalkboard, they would be the Jalen Hurts. Like if they're covering AJ like this, do not throw the ball off. And the Hurts would be like, it's all good. Throws it up, and AJ Brown makes a play and kind of just put the offense on his back and stretches.

So great on slants, great downfield, great over the middle, great yards after the catch. And to me, the only reason I had Devontae Adams fourth was he's 30 years old this year. AJ Brown is only 26. So that was my case for him. I had Diggs just off, so we're not that far off with it. I had him sixth. I love Stefan Diggs. He's another guy who's turning 30 in November.

So I just ended up going with the younger guy. Yeah, I think the Tyreek thing is always kind of interesting because you can argue like nobody lines up and scares people more than Tyreek. And it's funny, too, because some of the other, you know, discussion around him would be he's not as polished as all the other guys. It's like, well, he doesn't have to be. Everyone's so scared of him. They play off of him. He doesn't like he doesn't need the route tree that every other receiver needs because you're just scared to death.

needs because you're just scared to death. So I had to have him in my top five, even though I don't know that anybody puts him down as number one, even if you feel like he tilts the field more than any guy out there. All right. For running backs, I just picked five more wide receivers. All right. Who do you got? I'm just kidding. All right, I'll go first on this one. I think it's kind of funny when you break it down. You're like, I guess Nick Chubb is the best running back in the NFL. Well, there's a look on your face there that tells me you're going to think differently. I guess I'll just go. Nick Chubb, McCaffrey, Saquon, Derrick Henry.

And I'm going to put Eckler in that five spot. Okay, we've got three of the same five. I've got McCaffrey first. Now, this is really like scheme dependent. If you're asking me who's the best ball carrier, it is Nick Chubb. The guy is an absolute beast. Last three years, leads the NFL in runs of 10 plus yards, runs of 20 plus yards, top five and yards after contact.

He's so fun to watch. His lower body is just powerful. He's ripping through defenders. So I love Nick Chubb. I just had him two instead of one. I had so fun to watch. His lower body is just powerful. He's ripping through defenders. So I love Nick Chubb. I just had him two instead of one. I had McCaffrey first. And then 3-4-5, I might surprise you. I got Bijan Robinson, number three. Running back's a young man's game. You come in, you take the league by storm. I'm not going to play scared here on this. I got Bijan already at number three. I got Saquon number four. And then I think sometimes we forget about the guys that were just injured. I've got Jonathan Taylor number five. I

think he has a chance to come and bounce back and play really well this year. Still only 24 years old. So I wanted to get Derrick Henry in because I'm just like, all right, we're all going to talk every year about how Derrick Henry can't do it again. And he does it again. He's going to be like 37 years old, still doing this. So I wanted to get him in there. Eckler is absolutely a worthy choice. Josh Jacobs, Aaron Jones, those were the guys who I kind of had just missed the cut. But my five are McCaffrey, Chubb, B. John Robinson, Saquon Barkley, and Jonathan Taylor. I wouldn't even have had McCaffrey top five if it weren't for the San Francisco thing because of the injury history. I couldn't do it anymore. Even though with Shanahan's scheme, I get what you're saying, but I was off of him. of why he can be so dynamic if you use him to the best of his abilities. Chubb, his yards per carry is now number two all-time behind Jamal Charles,

the running backs. Now there's an old school fullback, linebacker, hybrid that technically ranks ahead of them. I think you've got to go back to the 50s or something. Saquon, three. I think a lot of people think Saquon is the best running back in the NFL, and I'm just not quite there with it. Like Chubb, I didn't think I'd have Chubb first.

I think Chubb probably suffers from some of the more dynamic visual stuff that can get you really excited. But when I think about running backs, and part of the problem for them is I just don't feel like guys turn the corner and get outside in today's game the way they used to when we grew up. That exciting just turn in the corner, having everybody sealed off, I just don't think there's enough room. I think there's too much speed on defense to see that consistently. So looking for that home run threat all the time at running back, I just don't know that it's there the way we're always expecting it to be. So Henry, I had to have, even if people think he slipped, look at the numbers from last year,

and that's without a starting quarterback for a good chunk of it. And then I just think the combination, even though Eckler's a little bit older than Jacobs, there's a lot of love for Jacobs out there on a lot of the preseason stuff. Eckler's combination of what he is and how steady he is the entire time. There's just no way I could have him outside of the top five. Yeah, Jacobs had 700 more yards from scrimmage last year than he had in any other season in his career.

So again, this is about looking ahead to this season. I mean, he had so many touches, what, almost 400 touches last year. And we've learned by now, running backs coming off those seasons, it's just going to be tough to stay healthy there. I'm with you on Saquon. I mean, you mentioned the McCaffrey injury stuff,

and that's absolutely valid the previous two seasons before last year. It's valid with Saquon too. He played a total of, what, 28 games the previous three seasons before last year. And his numbers are really interesting because there is a boomer bust to Barkley's game. Now, I don't mind that. I like a running back who is a home run hitter. But if you just look at, there's a stat called success rate that just looks at how often you produce a positive play. He's like bottom 10 among running backs. He's not that guy who's consistently, he's going to take tackles for loss and he's going to get those one or two-yard gains, but the thing is there's always that chance that in the third quarter

he has a 57-yard run that absolutely changes the game. It is different styles. It's different from Nick Chubb and some of these other guys. All right, tight end. This is another one of those groups you feel like it's number one. This is a lot like linebacker for me. There's number one

and then there's everybody else. So I imagine it's going to be kind of similar here. So go ahead and lead us off. Yeah, I have Travis Kelsey, George Kittle, Mark Andrews, Dallas Goddard, and I put Kyle Pitts as number five. Okay, we actually have the same four in order too. So Kelsey's a no-brainer. I've seen some love for Andrews above Kittle.

Kittle now is seven-plus yards per catch, which leads all tight ends since he ended the league in 2017. He had only 86 targets compared to Andrews' 113 targets. Now we can just get into a circular argument about this the whole time. It's like, okay, but look at the receivers for Baltimore and the fact that you know Andrews is the guy in the red zone. I mean, I love him. And the other part that I think people used to kind of argue, maybe Kittle a little closer to Kelsey in previous years, was just because Kittle's blocking. When

you really hone in on him and watch him block, he's a madman. He'll seal the edge and he gets out on the second level and he goes and looks to destroy somebody else. But then when you look at the blocking grades for Andrews, it's also great. It's maybe just not as chaotic looking, so maybe he doesn't get enough credit for it. So there's a bit of a push there for Andrews. I just think there's a level of playmaking that Kittle has in him. Some of the yards after the catch stuff, some of those plays where he's breaking it wide open. And he's doing it with three quarterbacks last year, which I would say at this point, none of them I'm in love with. So it just seems to be no matter what. And again, from the target standpoint, he's not going to have, it's kind of like a corner being targeted.

You can look at some corner stats and go, well, this guy doesn't get the ball thrown to him nearly as much as some of the other guys do, some of the other ball hawking stuff. He's just going to suffer in comparison. We're just looking at the stat line. So we're on the same page there with Kittle. I've got Dallas fourth, and I want Darren Waller fifth. I know he's missed 14 games the last two seasons, but from just a matchup and worrying about somebody

and even going into just this year, I know with the injury history, he's getting dinged all over the place. But when it came to fifth, it's like, okay, Pitts, talent-wise, Pitts could be fighting for two or three in this thing. Friar Muth, who I do really like and is really steady. But when I started kind of naming those guys, I'm like, I'm just going to go back to Waller

despite the injury part of it. Because when he's right, I mean, he's in that top, top group as far as his playmaking in the passing game. Yeah. If you could guarantee me Waller was going to be healthy, I'd absolutely have him in there just 31 years old and coming off two injury-marred seasons. But if he's healthy, he's going to lead their team in receiving yards. I mean, he could lead. Kelsey would still be the favorite, but he could certainly be second among tight ends in receiving yards. So yeah, they're, they're counting on a big year from him. They didn't really, the Giants didn't really make huge moves at wide receiver. Like we all looked at it last year and go, that was a nice start. Now they're going to build up,

you know, on the outside. And now you look at their depth chart, you're like, all right, they have like a, like 700 slot receivers and Darren Waller. So there's going to be a lot on a Waller's plate there. Kyle Pitts, disappointing last year, coming off an injury. He's too talented. He turns 23. He's going to get healthy. I don't love their quarterback situation, but I kind of snuck him in there. And I think you nailed it with Kittle. I mean, if you just look at yards per route run, which counts, how often is he going out in a route versus blocking? He's first.

He actually is better than Kelsey in the last three years. So when he gets those opportunities, he makes the most of them. And I kind of tossed those grades aside a little bit with the, like, I still think he is the blocker at tight end. I would say him and Goddard are the two guys on this list who are really good blockers. So yeah, I think we're pretty much on the same page there.

TJ Hawkinson probably deserves a little bit of a shout out. I was kind of surprised by looking at some of his numbers. And Friar Muth, I'm with you. I was like, wait, he had over 700 yards last year? Like, I know he's one of those guys you watch Red Zone or whatever, and you're like, oh, this guy's pretty good. But I didn't know he had that kind of production. And so he was really good last year, and he's still a young

player as well. Yeah, I mean, Pitts has a chance to be just right back in the mix here. I know everybody was freaking out. I think a lot of that was fantasy-related, but I felt like, I don't know, two hours into kickoff on Sundays, it was just constant bitching about Kyle Pitts. That was

100% fantasy-related. Not a little bit. Can't go higher than 100%. All right. This one's for you. I don't know how aligned we'll be on this one. I kind of just put it together. I was looking at just overall talent, how I felt. I looked at some of the run block, win block, the pass block, win rates for some of this stuff. But then, of course, we're also talking about turnover at the position. So give me your top five O-line groups knowing probably halfway through the season. This is way tougher to predict. Yeah, I don't want to be a fraud here and tell you that I spent the last 72 hours

grinding O-line film. So let me give a shout out to Brandon Thorne, who is awesome on everything offensive line. He has a substack called Trench Warfare, and I read his stuff constantly, his tweets, his site, and then I form my own opinions based on depth charts and that kind of thing. So I just wanted to be clear here with that. I've got Eagles, Browns, Lions, Ravens, and Chiefs. I think there are a few other teams you can throw in the mix. I think the Chargers are really good.

I think the Cowboys have a chance to be really good. I the mix. I think the Chargers are really good. I think the Cowboys have a chance to be really good. I think the Packers have a chance to be really good. But those were the five that I settled on. All right, say that again. I got Eagles, Browns, Lions, Ravens, and Chiefs. Okay, I have Eagles. Now, I don't really know that there's much debate about it. I mean,

it may not turn out to be the best offensive unit, but from just a talent standpoint, if you go to the ESPN.com executive thing that Fowler talked about and it's two top five tackles on the same group, it's hard to beat that. It's also an incredible amount of depth of tackle. Like when I'm going through all the tackles, God, all these guys I'd love to have. You know, you're like a 12. I'm going, there's so many studs here where any of these guys could be arguing like at the top of the season

or at the end of the season, top five. I have Kansas City too. I think Creed Humphrey's just a beast. And I know that their tackle stuff, they've kind of reinvented themselves over and over again. There's probably some stuff that benefits them having mahomes being able to keep plays open a lot longer where his scrambling isn't

like the russell wilson scrambling where it's like actually we don't suck at offensive line this guy just takes a million sacks uh i just i feel like mahomes obviously gives you the benefit there same thing with cleveland it's a really talented group, so we're on the same page there. I went with Detroit. The tackles, Decker and Sewell, Ragnow allowed one sack last season. Vi ties back, so I think that group has a chance to be in this mix. And then I went with Atlanta. I know that they benefit a lot from the run grades because of the way they played offense, speaking of everybody being mad about Kyle Pitts last season. But it's worth mentioning Atlanta at least

because I think they did play that well. And then, of course, Baltimore's in the conversation. I'm with you. Dallas has to be mentioned, but give me a break. I mean, you know how many to be mentioned, but give me a break. You know how many years I would look at the two deep and go, oh my God, Dallas figured it out. They figured it out.

And then every year it felt like it was kind of disappointing. And a lot of that is because of injuries. I give Dallas a lot of credit for all the years of putting the resources in to building that thing out. In theory, that could have been one of the great offensive lines we've seen. It just never felt like it came together. Not to say it was bad, but just it never came together, I think, by design, the way they were trying to build that thing out. And now it's getting a little bit later on in the game with some of these guys getting older. Yeah, tackle. I mean, Tyron Smith is an awesome player, but turns 33 and has played in 17 games over the last three seasons. I mean, you can't really count on him to be healthy. Their other tackle, Terrence Steele,

is coming off of a knee injury. So again, they have a chance. If we're doing this in week eight and we're going, man, the Cowboys offensive line is just dominating. Have they taken the crown from the Eagles? We could have that conversation, but I don't think that's the most likely scenario. And I think your Falcons one is fair. I mean, they run the ball more than any team in the NFL on early downs and the offensive line. They invested in that right side in the off season and they can run block. And that's why I had Bijan in my top five with the running backs, because I think that's what they're good at. That's what they're going to do. If they have to get in situations where they have to pass block, especially with an inexperienced quarterback, it could get a little bit ugly, but I don't think that's how

they want to play. Okay. We'll get to the defensive side of the football coming up next. Okay. Defensive guys. Remember, this is about kind of your stature in the game going into this season, where we think you are right now. We'll go edge guys, interior defensive linemen, corner safeties, and then off the ball linebackers. Let's start with the edge guys. Let me just start with this before you give us your top five. This is hard. This group is stacked.

And I'll give you some examples later on. But, you know, no matter what you do, you're kind of right, but you're also, there's going to be whoever you pick first, there's going to be three other fan bases. Are you out of your mind? But it just speaks to how special four or five of these guys are. So go ahead. Yeah. Wide receiver, corner, and edge is the other. I'm looking at my list now, and I'm like, oh, my shield. Do you want to change your mind here at the last second and throw that guy in there? He's really good. But I settled on Micah Parsons, Miles Garrett, TJ Watt, Nick Bosa, and Max Crosby as my top five. I'm looking at the guys I mentioned last.

I'm like, oh, that guy could probably be first. Yeah, that's kind of the point. I wrote Miles first, and then I'm like wait you love Michael Parsons like he lines up all over the place it's incredible but then I was like yeah but when you watch Nick Bosa can't take your eyes off of him and I had Bosa one I have Micah two and I have Miles three I have TJ Watt four and then I put Hassan Reddick fifth. I know his career is like the strangest thing ever. I really felt like I wasn't, I felt like I was getting it wrong

by putting Reddick over Crosby. But we'll kind of get into it. All right, why do you not have Bosa one? See, this sucks because asking it this way, now you have to talk about like this dude who's one of the best defensive players we've ever seen. Yeah, it's really nothing against... I just think Parsons is the biggest game wrecker in the NFL.

I think if you took quarterbacks out of the equation, him or Justin Jefferson is the most valuable player. If you had franchises, if you did a poll, maybe we should do a poll, and we're just like, who do you want? Non-quarterback the next whatever 10 years. I think Parsons would be that guy. I mean, he's 24 years old. He's had 26 and a half sacks the last two seasons. All the advanced stats are good with him. You watch him. You always

notice him when he's healthy. He's just a terror. He's absolutely unblockable when he's at his best. And again, yeah, you could say that for Nick Bosa. You could say that for the other guys as well. So it's really just a taste thing for me with Parsons. And then the reason I had Garrett also above Bosa is Garrett's the most double teamed player in the NFL. And I think he has a chance. I haven't gone through all my preseason awards yet. I think he could win defensive player of the year this year because they added Zedaria

Smith. They added some other defensive linemen. If they can free him up for more one-on-ones, you're just going to see him put up the most ridiculous numbers you've ever seen for a pass rusher. So I think he has to do more than these other guys, maybe not by like a wide degree, but if you just look at it statistically,

he's the most double-teamed guy, edge rusher in the NFL. And so I wanted to give him a little bump for still having 16 sacks while getting all that attention. Yeah, since Garrett's coming to the league, he's forced 24 turnovers by pressure, which is five more than any other player in the league. Wow. Every one of these guys,

when you want to highlight something on their resume, you go, why would you have anybody ahead of him? And if you go to the.com executive rankings, Bosa got a number one vote at the position. Micah got a number one vote. Miles Garrett got a number one vote. TJ Watt got a number one vote. I mean, TJ gets dinged up here a little bit because of the recent injury thing. I just felt like Bosa, over the course of a game, I kind of knew what I was getting out of him every single snap. Micah's unblockable. So, you know, that's a coin flip. I wrote him down first and then I thought, I don't know. The only thing I could say, and this probably speaks to the double team and

like, I'll never forget, um, Haloti Nada coming out and they were like, yeah, he takes some plays off. You're like, no shit, he takes some plays off. Every one of these guys usually find, other than maybe peak J.J. Watt, Aaron Donald where you look for, but if you really want to watch a defensive lineman

or an edge guy, especially some of the interior guys, but you're not getting max effort on 70 snaps you're just not it's like no one can really play that way and i think there's some feeling around garrett where if he's closed off he might be like all right but then the numbers don't tell you that he's that he's you know so that was something i just went from from a visual, just a visual standpoint on it. And I don't know that it's entirely fair. And I felt like no matter what I did with those top three guys, at least right now for

those top three guys, I was, for me, I was, I was going to have a hard time, you know, coming up with anything where I was like, I'm definitively like, this is number one and everybody else is wrong. It's just not that kind of category. Reddick is weird because he's got the second best pass rush win rate. And then some people can point to the absurd depth in the front seven from Philadelphia and say, well, that's how he eats. But when you think about his career, which got off to an incredibly slow start as a first round pick, for three years, you're kind of like,

what's going on with this guy? And then double digit sacks Arizona, double digit sacks Carolina, double digit sacks again in Philadelphia. So knowing exactly what he is in that group, and it just feels tough doing that to Crosby because the last two years he's had 100 pressures, which is number one in the league. So I don't think you go wrong putting Crosby fifth. You might be right on that one. I guess it just felt like Redick gets dinged a bit

because it took longer for him to be recognized as this impact guy. Yeah, Redick has the third most sacks in the NFL over the last three years. And when the Eagles signed him, now I'm watching film of him every week. And I thought the book on him coming in was, well, you have to use him in a specific way. He's not just going to line up and beat the tackle. You know what he did last year? He lined up and was just crushing these tackles.

You actually don't have to be that creative with Hassan Redick. So he absolutely deserves a mention. I gave Crosby the nod only because if you look at the number of snaps he plays, he doesn't come off the field. He's like an old school. They have nobody on that defense. The defense sucks. He gets no help.

Every offense comes in and goes, how are we going to block Max Crosby? We really don't have to worry about the other 10 guys. Their defense is one of the worst in the NFL. And he still gets it done. And he's still improved. So only 26 years old, that surprised me. I thought Crosby was older than that, but they're both great players. I just gave Crosby the nod because of what he has to do and how many snaps he plays. I think there's kind of a value in that sort of reliability. That's such a great point about the rest of the defense.

And the way he gets upfield, he just, he's nasty. You might be right about Crosby versus Redick there. All right, corners. This one's all over the place at the top. And I do have a bit of an NBA rule on this one for me where it's like, this is a sauce gardener rule where I just don't think I can put you number one after only one season. But let's see what you did.

I'm going to put him number one. I think he's awesome. He allowed this. That was wild. Allowed 54 yards on 152 snaps of man coverage last year. 54 yards as a rookie. He's physical. He led the NFL 20 passes defended last year. He's going

to be 23 years old. I love the personality and all that stuff. I love that he plays for the Jets. I had Sauce one. I thought it was a two-horse race for number one. I had Patrick Sertan number two. I think he's the other guy when you're looking ahead to this year. He's just awesome. He's young. He's probably the premier cover guy in the NFL. So I had him too. I had Jalen Ramsey, three, not coming off of his best year, but now he goes to Miami with Vic Fangio. He's still 29. He's still versatile. I'm excited to see how they use him. I think he's going to have a good year. I had Marlon Humphrey, four, who I think is, I don't know who's overrated and underrated. It

feels like he's probably one of the more underrated players in the NFL, just can cover, can tackle, physical, competitive, all those things. And you know what? I'm calling my first audible of the podcast, Ryan. I had Jair Alexander written down. I'm going Trevon Diggs. I know there's controversy over Trevon Diggs. He piles up the interception numbers, but he gets beaten coverage. I think the guy can cover. He's 25 in September. He has 17 interceptions over the last three years. You look at the way NFL defense has played nowadays. It's like you got to create turnovers. You have to make plays. He has 49 passes defended last two years, second among corners. So that's my first audible of the podcast.

Jair Alexander, you're a great player. I still love you. You're worthy of making the top five, but I'm going to go ahead and put Trevon Diggs up there at number five. Okay, so sauce number one, defensive rookie of the year, that yardage. What is that yardage stat again? That was insane. Yeah, 50.

He played 152 snaps of man coverage. This is a pro football focus or true media. And he allowed 54 yards on those 152 snaps total, which a rookie, that's ridiculous. Okay. I have Ramsey one still. I would agree there's some slippage there and there can be time but see this is where it gets a little unfair it's like do I remember the stuff with Ramsey where it doesn't work out more than say somebody else I mean think about the all 22 and all the stuff we don't see if you're not watching it consistently of like oh this guy actually like screwed up I think with Vic Fangio he's going to be awesome it's eight straight Pro Bowls for this guy, and it's a bit more of the established player

who I'm going like, I just don't know that I can put a rookie after one season as the number one corner in the NFL, although that may be sauce. Sertain actually was number one on the ESPN.com one, which kind of shocked me a bit. His 12.5% target rate is the lowest among qualified corners. So to my point earlier of targets and opportunities, he's basically targeted,

but there's a reason. Now you could get into it like Denver wasn't that good. He didn't have to get into a lot of shootouts. We can go around and around on a lot of this stuff, but I have him third even though other people had him one. I love the Jair Alexander call until you yanked it. When he's right, I love that guy. I don't have Humphrey. I would agree that he's incredibly

underrated, and yet I guess I'm going to do it too. For the fifth spot, I put Darius Slay down. 133 pass breakups since he entered the league. 10 years. You're the Philly guy. So why am I wrong about having Slay fifth? Well, I think he's 32 years old.

And so I was just, corner is also like running back. Corner is a young man's game. You look at the corners who really play a lot of snaps over 30, and there's probably fewer than 10 of them in the NFL. So if I'm just looking at who do I want for 2023, I'm going to go for the younger guy. Slay was great. Honestly, if you look at a lot of the stats,

Bradbury would be a top five guy if you're just going off of last year. Like I think he made all pro last year. So he deserves to be in there. But he's also another guy who I think turns 30 this year. So yeah, I was definitely leaning towards the younger guys. A couple other guys I left off. Marshawn Lattimore sort of feels forgotten, still an awesome corner. Asked to do a

lot, by the way, in that scheme. And then the other guy I had was Denzel Ward on the Browns, who I feel like he probably hasn't quite put it all together. But if you're telling me who's a corner on this list, who we're going to be talking about in December as an all-pro, who we didn't mention yet, Denzel Ward would probably be that guy because he's got all the skills. And I think that defense is going to be a lot better this year. Love Denzel in college. Loved him. Loved him in college. And I feel like my evaluation of him is that he can't just be good like he has to be special because i thought he was going to be special and i like i felt he was totally worthy

of the pick here um but the sauce stuff man it's it's tough to deny but then again you know if you're who was it was it revis or no no no who was going off about him oh was asante samuel tweeted right who can never win when he tweets because then everybody's like you dropped the interception Oh, no, no, no. Who was going off about him? Oh, it was Asante Samuel tweeted, right? Who can never win when he tweets because then everybody's like, you dropped the interception, dude. It sucks for him because his career. What did he say?

I didn't even see. He basically said, if you play in New York, you get pumped up and there's no way sauce is number one the whole time. Oh, okay. Corners are tough for me

because unless it's like my favorite team when I used to care about the Patriots outcomes and you're watching a corner every single week and you're really watching. And again, there's so much stuff

that we miss. I used to think back in the day if you had nine interceptions, everybody would talk about how great you were as a corner. Speaking of Asante Samuel, you'd be like, eh, I think he's all right.

But he just has a lot of picks. Maybe back to your Diggs point. I'm sorry on the Diggs thing. I completely disagree. I've just seen too many times where he jumps stuff looking for those numbers and you're like, what about the rest of it? What about the rest of the stuff? Where I think the group that we have here, I don't think Diggs is as well-rounded as these other guys we're talking about at the top. Yeah, it depends what you're looking for. If you want to play, he's the premier playmaker at quarter in the NFL. He gives up big plays. Now he gave up fewer big plays last year than he did the year before. And he's still young. And I view it as like, he still can. Like if you asked him, I don't know that he could, he's not obviously not wired that way. But I still think he has the skill set. If you were just like, all right, don't give up big plays. We want your coverage stats to be good. We don't care if you get your hand on the football.

I think he would be able to do that, but I want my, like I don't mind my cornerbacks to be a little aggressive and give up some of them. And they've had what a top five defense the last two years. So he's not obviously not killing their defense with some of that gambling. So yeah, Diggs is the most polarizing guy on this list. There are a lot of people I respect who would be like, what are you doing? Why did you make that pick? But I'm on

Team Diggs. I think he's really good. I think he's only going to get better. Okay, three more positions to go here. Let's go Interior Defensive Lineman. Okay. I'm still giving it to Aaron Donald, number one. I've got Chris Jones, two. Quinnon Williams,

number three. Jeffrey Simmons, number four. And Dexter Lawrence, number one. I've got Chris Jones, two. Quinnen Williams, number three. Jeffrey Simmons, number four. And Dexter Lawrence, number five. That's crazy. We have the same top five, not in order. Donald, I don't want to hear about him slipping a little bit. He's still... If you're comparing Donald to prime Donald, okay, you got me. If you're comparing everybody else who plays the position, he's still the best at it. I love what Chris Jones has done. Because remember, they were moving him around at different times, showed up big in the playoffs. He's another one where he probably gets dinged a little bit more because you feel like there's some effort range at times with him.

But I just still think with some of the bigger dudes that are playing these positions up front, you can't get on their case as much as I think people can, but I still have them too, so I'm not going to worry about it. I love his game. I have Simmons third. It's funny, on PFF, they graded him out 10th going into the year. We can play the injury game with over 60% of these guys that we're bringing up.

Well, hey, this guy actually had an ankle thing. Oh, this guy had a shoulder thing. When you go through all of the players and there's a dip in some of the production i mean it's the same thing over and over again i love his anger i love that i see him maybe it's the red sleeves i don't know but like when i'm watching a game i see him the entire time uh dexter lawrence some of the pass rush stuff from where he's playing from some of those numbers are off the charts like when you really started realizing how special that front was and how great of a year he was having with the Giants and that he's this young, back to your point on a lot of this stuff,

I remember going like, man, I can't even believe these stats are this impressive for what they're doing. Quinton Williams and Dexter's probably just a taste thing, coin toss. I think more people probably say that Quinton has more talent coming out of school. It was like, this guy's really special. Not that Dexter didn't have quite the resume himself. That one's a bit of a coin toss there. So no argument on four or five, if you had it the other way. Yeah, they're both ascending players. They're both young. I mean, Dexter Lawrence, what he has to do, and he's playing nose tackle a lot of the times, and he still led all interior defensive linemen last year with 30 quarterback hits. So he really exploded last year. That's another one where he's really only had one great season of pass rush production. So if you're saying, well,

you want to give it to somebody with more of a resume, like a Javon Hargrave, Jonathan Allen, DeForest Buckner. Again, this was one where there were a lot of defensive linemen who were worthy, but I think he's an ascending player. And same thing with Quinnen Williams. I mean, he's 26 years old. This is a position where guys routinely don't kind of hit their primes until they're in their mid to late 20s. Interior defensive linemen rarely come into the league and are good right away. And then the Chris Jones thing to me is always funny. A guy sitting on his couch looking at Chris Jones getting double teamed in 85, weather. Oh, he didn't go hard on that three yard run there. It's like, settle down. Like when it's, when it's third down, he'll get in there.

Um, and he's going to make a play. So, uh, I'm with you. They actually love when the, uh, cornerbacks and wide receivers need a breather and they're in, and they're like, dude, don't block me. I won't go make the tower. Yeah. You know, they kind of daff it up, like a breather. And they're like, dude, don't block me. I won't go make the... All right. Yeah. They kind of daff it up. We'll get a breather right here. So that's the only time I can relate to an NFL players when they're doing things like that. Okay. Safeties. Safety was so hard. I mean, it's really... This is another taste one. What do you want your guy to do? I had Mika Fitzpatrick one, Derwin James two, Justin Simmons three, Kevin Bayard four, and Buda Baker five. If you were like, Shiel, we need you to do

something, we need a social breakout or something, the guy I would have picked would be like Kyle Hamilton on the Ravens is going to have a monster year, and I don't even need to see it before I predict it. He's going to be a top five player because I think he's going to be really good for Baltimore, but I couldn't do that based on his one-year body of work playing the slot last year. Yeah, Simmons is a nice pick. I had him down and I went, man, when they were good, that unit was good. I mean, he shows up all day, right? Yeah. And, you know, he missed games last year. So that's where this weird group,

because I have Minka first, I have Derwin James second. The combination of run, his coverage, and the pass rush grades are absurd for him. He, like, ranked it like, I think he graded it out like a 91 last year. Bayard has been steady, steady, steady all the time, even if he didn't feel like he's got as much love last year.

Buda, another dude who can literally line up everywhere for them despite his demands of wanting to get out of there. I went with Javon Holland. I know he wasn't as good in 22 as he was in 21. I went with him over Micah Hyde who, coming off a significant injury,

a little bit older, but I love him. I think Winfield still gets mentioned if you were reaching for like four or five, a little bit there. But Simmons is the one I struggled the most with because it kind of came down to him and Holland. And one guy, there's an excuse for his drop off in Simmons and the other one for Holland. I don't really know that there is

as good of an excuse. I just thought he was so good two years ago and he's young enough that I'm like, you know what? I don't think he's going to be bad all of a sudden. So I put him fifth and with the new defensive coordinator, which we've already referenced with Ramsey. Yeah. Holland's a great pick. I mean, I think he's really good. And if we're looking, again, we're looking at this year, a guy who could take off and we're all talking about him as like an all-pro type player. I think he absolutely could be that guy. So I think that's a fine pick.

You mentioned Winfield, just like really, really, really good, but just maybe like a small notch. I think Minka Fitzpatrick is one of the defense, best defensive players in the NFL. Derwin James might be the most versatile defensive player in the NFL. So I couldn't quite get there with him, but yeah, he's also like, I would love to have him on my team and he's only 25 years old. Okay. This one, our last group here, Okay. This one, our last group here, I'd argue that this is the Mahomes and everybody else quarterback tier because when I watch Fred Warner, he is one of my, I don't know, five favorite players in the entire league. Like when you first started, at least for me, I can only speak for myself, but you were like, wait, what's up with this guy? And when you just watch Fred Warner, it is so much fun. His instincts, that he's around everything, that it feels like he's kind of this traditional

linebacker at times, this position that's, I don't know, there's just not the depth that there is at these other spots. This one got a little tougher, but for me, I'll let you go here. I felt like the gap between him and number two, I felt like he had as good of a chance for his positional group being the undisputed number one guy of any of these groups that we're talking about. That's how special I think Warner is. It's a good call, the Mahomes category. It's like even if you want to have the hottest take on the NFL, like you're not going after this guy, like my homes is like, no, one's coming out being my homes. Isn't that good? And I think Warner's the same guy just universally like, all right, stay away from that one. We all will just acknowledge the guy is amazing. Best linebacker, best cover linebacker, uh, in the NFL. So yeah, I've got him as a clear cut. Number one, I had like, this is the only category where I'm like, I'm having trouble finding five guys I really like here. And some of that is that a lot of the really good linebackers over the last

decade are now like 32, 33 years old. And I'm like, I don't want to put them in there. Linebackers don't age that well. So I went Warner one, Roquan Smith two, Shaq Leonard three, Matt Milano four, Tremaine Edmonds five. And so think about that top five. I, Shaq Leonard three, Matt Milano four, Tremaine Edmonds five. And so think about that top five. I put Shaq Leonard three, who I love as a player. We don't know if he's going to... He's had two back surgeries in the last year. He played three games last year. I couldn't do it despite the fact that when he was healthy, I mean, he's maybe challenging Fred Warner here just because the turnover plays alone. 100%. And then Tremaine Edmonds, I'm like, He's maybe challenging Fred Warner here just because the turnover plays alone.

And then Tremaine Edmonds, I'm like, Sheil, you spent the entire offseason ripping the Bears for paying Tremaine Edmonds $18 million per year, and now you're putting him in your top five linebackers. Hopefully no one's keeping the receipts on your Tremaine Edmonds takes this offseason. But I'm like, all right, I'll talk myself into it. He's 25 years old, coming off his best year. So I think he's overpaid. I would not have given him that contract. But when I was just trying to find young linebackers,

he's the fifth guy I settled on. All right. One and two are the same. Roquan has got, what, 690 tackles since he entered the league, second most linebacker. I had to put Milano in here. Again, it's a bit more of an eye test thing, where I just feel like when I'm watching Matt Milano games,

I notice him for three plus hours. Obviously, not when he's on offense. I wanted to put C.J. Mosley down in this group, but then I kind of gave the tie break to Nick Bolton. I wrote Shaq Leonard down six, but after the three games, insignificant, like scary stuff injury-wise, I was like, okay. So I've got Warner, I've got Roquan. I flirted with Tremaine Edwards, but then I was like, so what?

Yeah, but he just left and went somewhere else. I'm going to go with this. You're going to kill me for this because he's 34, but DeMario Davis is still awesome. That's not breaking news. Fourth all-pro season last year at 34, I think there's certain guys that just find a way to continue to hold up. It can happen. I'm not going to put five guys ahead of Davis based on what we saw last year, just because he's 34 years old. I'm just, I'm not. So there you go.

So I've got Warner, Smith, Davis, Milano, and I went Nick Bolton fifth. I like Bolton. Yeah, Bolton was on my list of just didn't make it. If I was looking for a young guy, DeMario Davis, I actually pretty sure on this spreadsheet I'm looking at had him in the top five. And then I'm like, that age? Can you really put him in there? But awesome player, probably, you know, I was going to say underappreciated, but you just told me he's an old bro for four years. So I guess he's been appreciated. Levante David is another guy probably in that DeMario Davis category where

he's older, but he's still really good. You hipsters, like my friend Ben Solak, loves David Long, who is now with the Dolphins and was with the Titans as a young linebacker who's really going to emerge this year. So there are different names, but yeah, I didn't have five that I'm like, every other position, I was keeping guys out who I thought are just unbelievable players. This was the only position where I was having trouble filling out the five with guys who I thought all these players make an impact every week.

Yeah, because when it got to like four or five for me, I was coming up with more arguments against everybody. And then when I looked at the DeMario stuff again, I'm like, all right, he was second team all pro,

but he's been all pro now four straight seasons from 30 years on. Like that doesn't make any sense. Yeah. So if anyone can do it, I'd imagine he's going to do it. He doesn't miss games. He doesn't miss games. I just felt like he had to be their fifth. If I was pushing guys ahead of him, I was only doing it for age. If we're talking about just

going into this year for this year, it's not like I'm giving them a five-year contract with three years of guaranteed money. There you go. 2023, you're all geared up and ready to go. You can forget about it in August and then we'll bring it back to week one. Thanks, man. All right. Thanks for having me. You want details?

Bye. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid.

So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. What's up? It's Life Advice. The email address is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com.

Also, a Friday feedback episode that will drop in August when I attempt to get out on the road here a little bit. Fridayfeedbackrr at gmail.com. What's up to the guys? Good weekends, everybody.

It's great. Went and saw Oppenheimer. It's fantastic. Don't want to know anything about it. I'm not going to tell you anything about it, but loved it. A little bit of a different speed, but three hours, fantastic.

Married life's great. Spent 200 bucks at the container store. Now we've got containers. And then we get to rearrange where we put all our things in the containers. And then we went and got wine. So big weekend. That's like the, that's like the,

what is it? Like Frank, the tank from old school is like got a big weekend plan. I'm going to go to a home Depot, maybe bed, bath and beyond. I don't know if I have enough time. I woke up like halfway through that thing. I'm like, Got a big weekend plan. Going to go to Home Depot, maybe Bed Bath & Beyond. Don't know if I have enough time. Kyle.

I woke up halfway through that thing. I'm like, what the hell is going on? All right. This is a one-off weekend, though. What do you mean you woke up halfway through it? I was just like, I was there. I was like, woke up in the Matrix. You know what I mean?

When Neo wakes up, you're like, what the fuck? And I knew I was going to the know i knew i was going to the container store but that was like in the container store and i'm like i'm holding like a 50 clear bin i'm like why wait why uh but uh it's all right i got out of there for 200 bucks and uh went to the clearance section and then um it's just it was a store i didn't i didn't see myself being in on a saturday you know but people love storage i don't think we need to go back there i feel like storage is as hot as ever been like now i see all being in on a Saturday. People love storage. I don't think we'll need to go back there. I feel like storage is as hot as it's ever been. I see all these things on Instagram and TikTok

of people, they'll put things that are already in containers in different labeled containers. That shit is so precious. What are we doing? That's crazy. The label makers. She was thinking about it too. She was like, I could get jars for all our spices and shit. I was like, no, no. We bought them in jars. She's like, you know our spices and shit i was like no no we bought them in jars you know what i mean she's like no

but like glass ones i was like no i'm gonna stop you right there uh you get the you need to open up the sliding drawer and you got them all like lined up there people love that shit i don't yeah i did reclaim my linen closet though that was that's been nice good for you what was happening to it prior to the reclaiming you know actually it was um all the bags of like grocery bags and stuff uh that we had bought over the years we just we saved them right or that you buy the but that you know i guess you they charge you 10 cents for them now but you save them and it was just like different like a shopping trip different shopping trips of bags just shoved through any everywhere in the closet then we had like old aquarium stuff that we finally got rid of

but um you got rid of the aquarium stuff. Yeah. Yeah. The single guy stuff. It was time to go. Yeah. There's nothing, there's nothing that says serious relationship more than a guy selling his

aquarium. Uh, yeah, I just put it on the street. I'm sure it'll be, it's like, it's gone already. So,

oh, there you go. I had, I had an aquarium when I was in college and as somebody who's moved quite a bit, moving with an aquarium is the worst thing. The only other thing you could have is like uranium. Be careful with that. I think cleaning it sucks too. Cleaning it was terrible.

I hated that. Yeah. There's no easy way to do it. We didn't really do it. We had a fish tank in college we wanted to get like a cool you know like the saltwater one to get the bigger fish but then we realized like how much of an endeavor that was so so we just got the freshwater little fish and definitely got neglected unfortunately it was all green yeah it's just gross in there

poor guy left on a break and you know that was pretty much the end of that that's how that's how all the fish die you go home for a week and you're like asking a guy like hey can you just don't feed too much? You know what I mean? Because, you know, he's like, yeah, sure. Come back. He's dead. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, we had a horrifying deal. Our buddy had a massive snake and he would leave like a really large hamster for it to eat and then go away for Christmas break because he had it down. Like he was like, it's fine. And it used to escape all the time. And it would escape in our house. And then one time a guy found it in the VCR slot.

He went to put a movie in and the snake popped its head out, which obviously wasn't the greatest deal with him. Everybody was kind of cool with it though. Some guys were freaked out by it, but it did become kind of like a thing that you're like, Oh, you know,

Sully grabbed your snake. And then, uh, when it disappeared after the break, we were like, what is going on? And then dudes are starting to get a little freaked out because the house was probably not up to code.

We're like, I do not need like a drop ceiling panel falling on me with a snake, you know, Indiana Jones style. I don't, I don't need that. And then it was like another couple of weeks went by. We're like, ceiling panel falling on me with a snake, you know, Indiana Jones style. I don't, I don't need that. And then it was like another couple of weeks went by. We're like, no one knows where it is. Like this kind of sucks.

But like, he's like, dude, I can't call it. It's not a dog. And then we did find it dead later on. And it looked like it had a hard time digesting this large hamster. Cause there was like a hamster imprint in the snake body and the snake was dead and my friend slowly cried so damn don't do that like a loose loose snake is a tough one i don't know if you want to lose snake god damn it i can't imagine i can't imagine honestly thinking back yeah thinking back like i think everybody now that i think about it dealt with it rather well the psychological shit that it's got to be like when they do those pranks in school and they like, you know, paint numbers on three chickens and it's like one, two and four.

And everyone's like, where the fuck is three? It's just the psychological, you know, the psychological, like, where the fuck is this snake? Am I, you know, is it in the toilet? You know, one of my best best friend's sister bought a house and you know like you have to disclose some stuff you don't really have to disclose everything it's kind of shady actually so they end up moving in they realize they have this like black snake infestation in their basement and i guess they call somebody like see how bad it is like put some flour down on the floor and then like you know you'll see all the impressions or whatever so they did that and

then like the next day they come downstairs and there's just the flowers moved all the way up they're just like obviously dozens and dozens of snakes and they're getting in through the you know the cracks in the foundation and it's just i'm like you have to move like what else yeah they're not dangerous snakes but i'm like no no you gotta start coming upstairs like yeah i'm out like i'm sorry like it is we're just gonna take a loss in the house and that's it sorry honey imagine though like you're just you're okay with it like you and your wife whatever you know maybe she's from vermont you're just like that's it. Sorry, honey. Imagine though, you're okay with it. You and your wife, whatever. Maybe she's from Vermont. You're just like, that's fine. It's not a big deal. Then when

guests come over, you're like, hey, we have... Make sure you get a good seal on that door when you close it. Hey, just in case you shower, there's usually some snakes, but it's not a big deal. They're fine. They're harmless. They're friendly, actually. Yeah. Now, thinking back, I can't believe it wasn't a bigger deal because the snake was massive.

What kind of snake was it? I don't even know what people have for snakes i don't know it was big but if it wrapped around your arm sometimes you'd go a little nervous like this is getting a little weird and then i think he even told us like one time he had to like pull it off of his arm it was like really going for it um and then i think there was also one of the roommates was actually like hey dude we gotta find that snake like it was bumming him out way more but we were all such dicks back then because i think we were 20 in this house we were just such dicks like the guy that would expose his weakness yeah the guy that actually was like hey i'm actually not super into the idea there's a six-foot snake my mom's coming through the house right now like can we call somebody then then everybody else would just pile on that guy whatever dude it's not a big deal it's always

missing it's gonna come back what are you scared of it like so everyone would be afraid in that scenario to admit what the reality is is like we need to find a solution to this before something bad were to happen. Or I don't want to wake up with a thing in my bed. Even if you're okay with it, that moment would be horrifying. And yet, yeah, one of the guys was like, dude, we need to figure this out. And we're like, whatever, it's fine.

It'll be back. Not a big deal. And then it was dead. So he didn't even have to worry. He was probably dead the whole time, the time we got back all right here we go a couple submissions today wedding apology last weekend i was in a wedding for my brother-in-law not sure why i was invited to be a groomsman is we don't have that type of relationship during my wife's speech she brought up how she knew my brother-in-law was the one for her sister so again this is a guy right um right right um the sister of his wife and then right okay um she knew that my brother-in-law

was the one for her sister because of our dog who can be a little grumpy was all lovely towards him during that part i made a comment to my table with her parents that my dog is an asshole thinking nothing of it i went on through the night left early to pick up our kids three days later my wife received a text from my father-in-law explaining that i need to apologize to the family and what was i thinking making that comment i'm kind of over the mafia don mentality of my wife's family and really don't want to apologize. Was it a dumb comment? Sure. But enough to have a sit down and apologize to my whole family. It's not in my opinion. What should I do? I'll tell you right now. We don't need a follow up. You being surprised that you're invited to be in the party as a brother-in-law,

even if you're not friends, that's pretty standard operating procedure. Okay? Really? Yeah. It's not a rule, but there are tons of wedding parties where I've been to where the groom is not boys with somebody that's in it, but it's just understood because of a sister relationship. Oh, I'm marrying you. You have one brother. We're going to throw him in the wedding party,

even if he's the dude who hasn't gone through all the battles with the other dudes for the last 10 years or whatever. That happens all the time. And for you to immediately question why you'd be in it makes me wonder if you're a little harsh, if you're a little rough around the edges in general daily routine. Go ahead, Serena. No, I should say a lot of times it's like a numbers thing too because like typically there are more bridesmaids

than groomsmen. And so you just got to make the numbers kind of work out. So you get some like B-level guys in there. And that's what it is. Like it's not the end of the world. Like guys just kind of understand that. So that's probably, it isn't that big of a deal at all.

I'm just backing you up. Wow. I'm so glad that my wife doesn't have a brother. That would have been, this whole thing might have fell apart in Ocean City. If he had to come to the bachelor party, he's like, guys, you don't understand. So anyway, go ahead. Look, I'm with the emailer here that of all the comments that have had to be apologized for at a wedding, you saying your dog is an asshole during the speech, like that line

may have played well at a different table. Yeah, I would have laughed. It's kind of a good line, yeah. Yeah, and you suggesting that this is maybe a pattern. I'm kind of over the mafia dom mentality of my wife's family. Yeah, like to have to go to a sit down

on this one three days later, I might do the apology just to see what it would be like. Right? Why are you so mad? Now, granted, that's going to make it even worse. So the easiest thing to do would just be like, hey, next time I see you,

but I don't think I have to get a babysitter and then shoot over there for the afternoon or change a lunch around to make this happen. Maybe I could do it over the phone or whatever. That's the thing. A lot of it depends on what your wife wants you to do here. That's part of the deal. There's other times where I'm like,

you shouldn't have to just lose all the time because you're married. But in this case, this is not a huge L for you to massage the rest of your life. You're going to pay a bigger price not apologizing this is not a huge L for you to massage the rest of your life, right? Like you're going to pay a bigger price not apologizing, despite the fact that I agree with you. Like unless there's another version of this where it's delivered a different way,

is there other history here? But if for the most part they're this upset days later because you kind of made fun of your dog as being the through line to the speech you know i i think they're overreacting but sometimes we all have to apologize for stuff we don't want to apologize for because the price for not apologizing is going to be way more than whatever small victory you get defying these guys but it does seem really annoying especially if they want like this sit down that you're alluding to yeah this is a curb moment this is larry david that's an

episode right this is that's an episode that's him nice uh that's that's him and then you know he probably in the in the apology uh offends somebody you know he's like you know i'm sorry that uh if you were offended but you know you that's like the, cause that's how it feels. It feels like, you know, it feels like I would even be like, you know, sorry that I offended you. You know, my family, we kind of joke about this stuff or something, but it's going to be hard to not, to not put your own little flavor of, but you know, I wasn't really wrong in this apology, but yeah, I wouldn't rush to apologize. I wouldn't call anyone up. Like it's just next time you see him, I guess, you know, there's, there's so many holidays in a year. I'm sure you'll run into him and then just be like, Hey, by the way, you know, my wife

mentioned that, you know, you guys were a little upset about this thing and I'd been thinking about it for a while. So I just wanted to say, you know, sorry, I didn't, I didn't notice an issue with it at the time, but, uh, you know, I get it was a big day. So sorry. I think that's, that's easy, but I would just say, if you really are not into this, just watch out for the Larry David style apology where you end up getting in hot water because you're, you know, you're trying to, you know, trying to throw caveats in there when you should probably just be like, my bad. Didn't realize that it was such a big deal. Yeah, I think you got to follow your wife's lead on this, like Ryan said, but I do find it very odd. I think adults making other adults apologize is a really weird thing. Either you get it and

you feel like you should apologize or you just don't. And there's animosity. But either way, like forcing an adult to apologize to other adults, just like I get it. Like you're a kid. You're trying to teach them what right and wrong. Like I'll probably have to figure this out in a couple of years. Like, yeah, go over there and apologize to them. Like you did something wrong.

You're teaching them a lesson when you're above. Like when you're when you're a married dude, like we're not teaching any lessons anymore. You you just you're an asshole you're not just saying words and you get it you don't get it yeah so i i just think i i reject the entire so i'm with you like i reject the entire principle of having to apologize to these people but you're ryan you kind of alluded to it like there does it feels like this is a pattern like maybe do they do they not like you like do you curse a lot yeah yeah you know because i've i had to rein it in around he's like hey just so you know these guys don't really curse as much as your family does and you know i walk into her her grandparents i'm like wow look at this fucking room and it's like oh wait a second don't don't do that so yeah it could be that you're just you know culturally different

yeah i've never kind of understood like the swearing thing you know i i feel like and i swear too much in the podcast i don't i don't mean to i'm not like oh cool now i'm not on radio so i can do it too much but sometimes you have to just drop an f-bomb in there to make the point all right but i do swear too much and i apologize but i think it's back to the service industry you start off washing dishes prep book and then bartend a little thoroughly that way yeah 10-year stretch you just do you swear too much i feel like people were like caught off guard last week when you went on that rant and you got a little angry and he didn't drop a couple of you know an f-bomb or two and like people like whoa riscilla

like that was kind of out of nowhere i don't i don't think i don't i don't feel like you swear too much i think they're they're definitely positive like you can't over swear and just completely takes the meaning out of any swear i don't i don't feel like we're in that territory i needed to swear on that filming at the gym ramp. Yeah. Like that's the time where you're like, Hey, you got to swear.

But I also, for the parents that listen to the podcast with kids, I could have, but it was going to kill the momentum of what I was doing. Right. So I knew from like, not some audible, you know,

like here's, you know, year tone, one 10 for three credits. It's just that I knew the way I was saying that I had to just go right to it, but there's definitely some parents I'll apologize to now because I didn't give you any kind of heads up and I just dropped it pretty hard. And there's probably some, you know, earmuff situations with the kid car. So, um, yeah, I, the reason I bring it up is a deal here.

If you're talking to somebody's grandparents and you're dropping F-bombs, there's something wrong with you. Reign it in. Figure out in that moment that you can't swear around them. I don't think that should be hard to do. Now, if somebody else were to say, hey, can you not swear all the time in front of my parents or whatever because they don't like it? That to me makes a lot of sense. But I also think there's some people who'd be like, well, why? They're adults. I'm an adult. Why wouldn't you do it? Maybe it's a little old fashioned for me to even think that it'd be nice to just not do

it so that they don't have some idea of you. Because then if they don't ever curse and you're cursing like crazy, then they're just going to think less of you they just are it may not be fair it may be stupid to you outdated whatever but i think there's just a level of like hey you're going to meet my family can you not swear don't come in hot i think that's i think that's a completely realistic uh request reasonable right yeah reasonable reasonable first thing through the door the fucking traffic oh my god I think that's a completely realistic request. Reasonable. Yeah. Reasonable. Reasonable. First thing through the door, the fucking traffic.

Oh, my God. Assholes almost ran me off the road. I got to take a shit. Where's the bathroom? Yeah. Or that would be another. Yeah. I mean, if you want to.

So it could be that our email is just like, I don't like anybody telling me what to do. me what to do here on this one like i i do think i'm i'm on the emailer side about this thing but i am wondering if there's there's a bit of a hint here or there with some of the things where it's like maybe you're not the easiest to deal with all the time like i'm just surprised you you were upset you were in the wedding it's like yeah but that's that's kind of the way it goes sometimes with that anyway all right i he's probably still better off apologizing for it but you might be worse off now that i think about it apologizing for it because you go over there and within 30 seconds you're gonna be like this is fucking stupid but i'm sorry so maybe you do it over the phone standing in front of your wife yeah right she's coaching you with the hand signals and stuff.

I mean, it's totally fine to apologize. Just like pull people to the side. You know, like, hey man, I stepped over a line yesterday. Like, my bad. It won't happen again. Sure, maybe the patriarch

or the matriarch you come into, but you don't have to like do it in front of the whole audience. Right? Yeah. Right, like this isn't a CBA. You're not giving back a percentage of revenue here.

You're not, you know, like there's, unless you think there is, right? There's something, if I give in now, then down the road, they're going to take this away from me. I think it's okay to apologize. All right, let's just get to the next one. All right, Wandering Eye. This is not a rare one. What's up, guys? Huge fan of the pod. Hitting the gym lately to get the pounds down, so nothing to brag

about yet on that front. I do admit my problem may border on scumbag behavior, but just hear me out. To be completely honest, I'm in the best relationship of my life. We're going on four years official. She's 11 years my junior. We talk frequently about marriage. Her family likes me. I like them, despite some hiccups with her son. We were fine for the most part.

Now the dilemma. I've maintained friendships with several ex-girlfriends and other women and converse with them frequently. Obviously, my girlfriend doesn't know about these messages. She would not approve. To be fair, most of the combos are harmless, but they can get out of hand with a few and would probably be classified as cheating by most. I haven't physically compromised.

With a few of the different threads I've got going? Just a few of the five? Chains on, but nothing's happened yet. I haven't physically compromised our relationship since a drunken night two years ago. So you did cheat on her two years ago. But I've been a good boy since.

She finally forgave me for that one, aren't you, found out. But tonight, she just happened to see a Snapchat from an ex-girlfriend. She understandably got super upset. The snap in itself was harmless. But TBH, not all of them are. Uh-oh. I love my girlfriend with everything, and I, with everything I got,

and I know all caps, she is the one for me, but I cannot help the innocent flirting with others. Any advice from two married guys would be appreciated, and also from Ryan, who I'm convinced is much more of a ladies' man than he lets on. Thanks for the pod.

Thanks for the advice, and here's wishing you guys continued success. All right. Well, you're going gonna get fucking caught i can't believe you haven't got caught yet snapchat is devious in itself just just as an older man if you've got a girlfriend that's 11 years younger than you you're too old for snapchat unless you're going to jail you know what i mean like that's yeah that would be a different email yes we probably wouldn't touch that one uh all right i mean the married guys want to go first here i mean should i just go you got to be done you just got to be done with talking to your

ex-girlfriends i mean that's i mean if you're saying you can't help it then you just got to stop that just stop it just fucking stop it and if the and if the relationship goes away that you're in now you you can pick back up. If you're afraid of like, oh, if we fall out of contact, I won't be able to pick up. If you got this weird subconscious thing, you just have to stop it. You have to stop it. I thought you were like, oh, when I'm out and about, I can't stop talking to women. It's just you got a hard line to fuckery in your phone.

And it's Snapchat. It was just like, as an adult, what are you doing with Snapchat, bro? Come on. phone and it's snapchat it was just like what what as an adult what are you doing with snapchat bro come on i really hate to say it but like if the if the cheating thing wasn't like a like a you know come to jesus moment for you then i don't think he's gonna stop kyle like i think this is just kind of who he is as a personality wise like he just he needs that he needs like the satisfaction of kind of like even even if it is innocent he has no plans to act on it with his exes i don't know man i don't know i feel I feel like if I'm trying to stop smoking, why am I keeping cigarettes in the house? You know what I mean? I'm back to smoking.

You know what I mean? It's not like it's quitting smoking. Isn't that I mean, as a non smoker, I guess you'd be better. Who else are you letting down? It's notoriously pretty hard to quit smoking. No, like my grandparents. Whatever. I'll just stop.

It's not that it's not that easy. I'm just saying, like like if you really wanted to make a go at being like you know being proud of your efforts in this arena then you would get Snapchat off your phone and you'd have to either stop replying or just be like hey listen I'm going to have to make a real go at this

relationship thing I'm going to try to be an adult and be honest you know and not be sneaking off to doing this whenever you know whenever I'm bored so like that's if you that just has to stop honest, you know, and not, and not be sneaking off to doing this whenever, you know, whenever I'm bored. So like, that's, if you, that just has to stop or just, you know, or leave the relationship. But like that, this is a, this is a hard line into, into like flirting with cheating is what you're doing. And then you're going to get, you're going to get caught for cheating without even cheating. You're just going to be having weird Snapchat messages. You're not even going to have any of the, you know, supposed benefits of cheating. You're just going to look like a shady scumbag and her family's all

tight and you guys know each other. And then everyone's going to think you're this fucking weirdo because you kind of are, because you're not even gaining anything out of this, except for that one time that you cheated two years ago. So, you know, you have it in you. She knows you got it in you because you're caught and now you're just messing around, you know, in the, in the beginning stages of cheating or this is just, it makes the moral of the story is either cheat on her with your exes or just her just quit cold yeah yeah yeah okay whatever I mean the quickest thing to do is which I think men have a hard time doing or they're not honest with themselves not to say that women get it all right

either uh but i've only been a man so i can only really feel good about that perspective but i always bring it back to like you know the days of of guys coming back into town where i would bartend and they may have been like a legend when they were in that town and now they're just old but they want to see if the cocktail waitress will flirt with them. Like they could be married, they could have a couple of kids, but they need to know that everything else in their life could be great, but they still, and I've repeated this before, but I just, I think it's a really important thing of understanding this is that if you had a good run, uh, in in your younger years there's part of you that

will always want to know if it's still a possibility and you know some of that's a lack of maturity a lot of it's ego driven you just kind of need to know and you're getting all of this attention from these exes that helps you make feel make helps you make you know feel better about yourself, which is a pretty worthless validation if you were to really chalk it up. Who gives a fuck? Also, there's a paper trail there. Right. You want to marry the girl that you're with,

but that day you have a text from a girl that you had something with and she's still thinking about you. It's an ego boost, but it's not like a permanent ego boost. It doesn't really do anything. But apparently, you need this shit right now. But it doesn't really add up to anything. This isn't a bank account that's growing with interest. This is just a fleeting moment that's far more, potentially far more damaging than it is rewarding. Right? So you just need this attention.

I think people, I'm not saying you're a narcissist, but like a narcissist would do this and then not even think about the downside to it because it's like, hey, it's just for me. The other thing a narcissist, and I'm not saying that's you, would do is they would never even fathom the idea that it could be happening to them. Right? Like, what if you read her text, and it was an ex-boyfriend? It was like, remember that time we smashed in Park City? That was so hot. You were wearing this thing. And you just keep going on and on and reading it. Like, how are you feel? Be fucking irate, because you're kind of selfish emotionally. And I'm not saying, like, you're the only guy that feels this way. There's plenty of dudes

that do shit like this. But if you are serious about it, you have to ask yourself like, what will I feel like if she really digs in and reads all of this stuff and I'm telling her I also want to marry her and then all of that's ruined and off the table for just this fleeting attention. This is like back to the Instagram video. This is the equivalent of like the dopamine of like, why am I watching fucking sodas be organized in a fridge? Right. Why am I watching this stuff? Uh, you, you're kind of addicted to

the attention. You're addicted to the game part of it. Um, I don't even know if you have any interest in any of these women and, and bringing, going back to name. Apparently you don't even know if you have any interest in any of these women and going back to any. Apparently, you don't. I mean, you're not even single. So I really, you already know it's stupid. You already know you're putting something that's really important to you at risk. And you've got to find a way to just go, hey, I'm seeing somebody or they probably already know. Or like, hey, it's taking the next step.

Or if they don't know, maybe you don't tell them that because then they could get pissed at you. Although after a while, flirty text, you'd think they'd be like, what's going on here? Look, I just we all know the answer. I just don't know if you're capable of following through on the advice. I'd like to know the stats of this too, because from what I heard, it sounds like he said he often texts with multiple girlfriends and a few of them get racy.

That's like, it sounds like a lot. Like, are we talking like five to seven? Like, are we talking like a range of, of like 10 years you're keeping in touch with? Because I mean, he said he often texts them and with a few of them. So that's like a percentage of the chunk that he keeps in touch with. A few of them get a little crazy.

So it sounds like you've got a lot of these. And then one solution I would offer up is you could just block everyone. And then if this relationship goes south and you want to get back in touch with them, be like, hey, sorry, my girlfriend found out she blocked everything. I didn't really have a chance to break this thing off. So you could just go cold turkey in that way and you just block them. You won't get any messages. And then you have an out if you need to run back to them one day. Yeah, you could try the cold turkey thing. He's clearly pretty addicted to all this stuff. But I have to ask anybody that's going through

something like this, can you weigh the two things? Can you weigh her walking into the bedroom before you even start the day and she got into your phone and she walks in and she's like, hey, we got to talk. Are you ready for that feeling? Are you ready to have that pit in your stomach and then have her leave and it's all fucking gone? have her leave and it's all fucking gone all right now there's the fucked up thing is some of you guys would be like you think you'd be devastated and then you realize like i'm not even that like i guess i wasn't as into it as i thought i was because i do think that somebody can be totally into the other person and you can think you want to marry him and all these different things but you you can't get off of this attention seeking stuff like you can't get past this so uh you've just got to try to think about this moment that hasn't really happened yet to you. And if you can be honest about how you would feel, which is a really hard thing to do, would you really want to feel that?

Would you want to make somebody hurt that bad that thinks they're marrying you? Do you think you could even get to that point of like, oh my God, that would be the worst. I don't want to do that to anybody. And that's the motivation to get in front of this before something actually happens. Possibly. Or, I mean, there's another part of this. Maybe you're not as serious about this relationship as you think you are because you still seem to prioritize texting with all these people that you used to date. So, anything else?

I think we're good. All right. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Steve. We'll be back Thursday with a live episode and thanks for listening and subscribing.

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